News of the Weird

Article by: Chuck Shepherd

October 31, 2007 - 5:34 PM

Junior New York City hedge fund trader Andrew Tong charged in October that his boss forced him to take female hormones to dampen his aggressiveness, which the supervisor said was leading him to make bad trades, according to a CNBC report. In his lawsuit against Ping Jiang (a big-time trader who reportedly earns $100 million a year) and employer SAC Capital (one of the biggest hedge fund names on Wall Street), Tong claimed further that he was harassed and even sexually attacked, and had started wearing dresses.

Unclear on the concept

 Israeli police announced in September that they had arrested a gang of eight young Israeli neo-Nazis from the city of Petah Tikva (near Tel Aviv), who had been attacking and harassing religious Jews (and also gays and foreigners), beating them and videotaping the attacks. A police search turned up weapons and also Nazi materials such as uniforms, portraits of Adolf Hitler and symbolic references to Hitler's Third Reich. Reportedly, the gang members hail from Russia and emigrated under Israel's policy of admitting anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent.

Names in the news

Convicted of murder in a home invasion was Andrew S. "Junebug" Warrior (the "S" stands for Sweetie) (Tucson, Ariz., June). Discouraged by school officials from attending a Catholic school because of his name was 5-year-old Max Hell (Melbourne, Australia, July). Arrested for stealing three rolls of toilet paper from a courthouse was Suzanne Marie Butts (Marshalltown, Iowa, June). Leading a fight in the Kenai Peninsula Borough (Alaska) Assembly to defeat a term-limit rule was Assemblyman Gary Superman (Soldotna, Alaska, September). Arrested on more than 30 counts of child pornography facilitated by peering through bedroom windows was Jeffrey Ogle (Vallejo, Calif., August).

Crises in men's nipples

 William R. Cohen filed a $1 million lawsuit in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in May against a family after their Jack Russell terrier bit his left nipple, causing him (according to the lawsuit) medical expenses, loss of income, pain, disfigurement and "loss of sexual comfort and desire."

 In June, Ronald Barrett, 68, a longtime school administrator in Bucks County, Pa., was suspended after he punched a 15-year-old student who had touched his chest. Barrett said there had been a long-running problem of boys at the school engaging in "titty-twisting," and Barrett said, "I didn't want anyone touching my nipple."

Obsessions

 Australian Les Stewart holds what the website Oddee.com calls the "third most bizarre" of all Guinness Book world records: having typed out the written numbers "one" through "one million," over a period of 16 years from 1983 to 1998, according to an August story in his local newspaper, the Sunshine Coast Daily. He said he typed for 20 minutes at the beginning of every waking hour during that time because he "wanted something to do."It just came naturally to me."

The District of Calamity

 Two high-ranking D.C. school officials were charged in recent months with stealing money from the school system, including Brenda Belton (who pleaded guilty in August), who stole almost $650,000 while she was in charge of all charter schools in Washington, D.C., and Eugene Smith, who allegedly stole $46,000 just after he left the job as the schools' director of internal audit.